The myth of the page fold: evidence from user testing

As web professionals, we all know that the concept of the page fold being an impenetrable barrier for users is a myth. Over the last 6 years we’ve watched over 800 user testing sessions between us and on only 3 occasions have we seen the page fold as a barrier to users getting to the content they want.

In this article we’re going to break down the page fold myth and give some tips to ensure content below the fold gets seen.

What is the fold?

Above the fold is a graphic design term that refers to important content being on the upper half of the front page of a newspaper. It’s commonly used on the web to describe the area you see on a web page before you have to scroll down the page.

Why we don’t worry about the fold

People tell us that they don’t mind scrolling and the behaviour we see in user testing backs that up. We see that people are more than comfortable scrolling long, long pages to find what they are looking for. A quick snoop around the web will show you successful brands that are not worrying about the fold either:

BBC, Play, Amazon.co.uk and the New York Times websites showing the position of the page fold

Adding evidence from user testing

When we user test here at cxpartners we use an eye tracker. The eye tracker lets us see what the user sees. We then take the combined eye tracking data from each study and produce a series of heatmaps. The heatmaps show us what as a whole the user group is looking at.

Scrollbars are used to assess page length and to indicate content below the fold

Heatmap from eyetracking showing scrollbar as cue to page length

One of the most common things we see on a heatmap is a strong hotspot over the scrollbar. The scrollbar is used to assess the page length. Users expect to have to scroll. The heatmap below shows this.

Less content above the fold may encourage more exploration below the fold

The image below shows some recent eye tracking work we did with Bristol Airport. The screens show two different design treatments for the hero slot (the large, prominent image area) on the homepage. The surprising thing we learnt was that actually having less above the fold (one large content block as opposed to 2 smaller ones) encouraged exploration below the fold.

Bristol Airport eyetracking showing how users explore the page if there is less above the page fold

The image on the left has more crammed in above the fold, and the image on the right has less.

When there is not exploration below the fold

As we mentioned in the introduction there have been 3 occasions where there was little exploration below the fold. In each case the cause was the same.

One of these occasions was some user testing work we did for First Choice last year. The page below, a very long one, caused problems as users were not scrolling down the page.

The blue horizontal bar was the barrier to scrolling

The long blue ‘Accommodation’ heading was acting as a barrier. This is the common theme – strong horizontal lines across the page discourage scrolling.

First Choice have now fixed the horizontal line issues and have content just showing above the fold.

The image library pokes up just above the fold indicating that there is content beneath

Design tips to encourage scrolling

We can offer three design tips to ensure content below the fold is seen.

Less is more – don’t be tempted to cram everything above the fold. Good use of whitespace and imagery encourages exploration.

Stark, horizontal lines discourage scrolling - this doesn’t mean stop using horizontal full width elements. Have a small amount of content just visible, poking up above the fold to encourage scrolling.

Avoid the use of in-page scroll bars - the browser scrollbar is an indicator of the amount of content on the page. iFrames and other elements with scroll bars in the page can break this convention and may lead to content not being seen.

Update Friday 9th October 2009. 10am GMT

Just some clarification. On all our testing set-ups we force the browser size to be 1024 x 740 px. This puts the average page fold at around 700px on screen shots above.

Our research shows the most effective place for content is above the fold, no surprises there. We are saying that people do scroll. Users scroll if there are cues to scroll and no design barriers to scrolling.

Update 2 Friday 9th October 2009 1pm GMT

Richie Lee make a really good point below about bordering content to give a further visual cue that there is further content below the fold.

There are some tips here for designing e-commerce product pages and forms with further tips on dealing with the fold:

Reading through the write ups from Apple’s recent WWDC event it struck me that there is a sea change coming in digital design.

165 Comments

Gareth

07 Oct 2009

15:22

Great article.

Was this also the same on registration forms? Did having it on one page but below the fold do any better or worse than ones broken down in ‘chunks’?

Would be interested to know.

JD

07 Oct 2009

15:46

Interesting to see the need for a visual queue of more content at the bottom (above fold) in addition to scroll bar positioning. Less information visible above fold may be another queue that the user is not seeing the majority of available information, maybe this is encouraging scrolling. Perhaps seeing a lot of information above the fold gives the user a sense that they have already discovered the majority of what the page offers, and therefore they may be less inclined to scroll to see more of same. What seems to make sense to me is a clean design above the fold that relies only on scroll bar positioning as a cue of more information below is a mistake if you want to maximize viewing of all content by most users.

Joe Leech

07 Oct 2009

15:30

Hi Gareth,

The fold doesn’t seem to be a problem with forms. User stop scrolling when they hit a button.

Thank you for articulating what I’ve observed anecdotally for some time. There is a constant pressure from clients to keep everything ‘above the fold’ which results in many bad decisions being forced onto web designs. Glad to see this shown in a technical and well documented context. I will be sharing this article.

Gareth

07 Oct 2009

16:57

Thanks Joe,

Another great article, thanks for the link.

Brad Sherrill

07 Oct 2009

16:00

I will be referencing this article very soon!

jrep

07 Oct 2009

17:50

You seem to have an unstated assumption as to normal window sizes. For example, how else can one ensure “a small amount of content just visible, poking up above the fold”? What size is that, and why do you think it’s significant?

In my own browsing, I hardly ever find two sites with the same height or width; my browser windows are pretty much randomly sized each time I hit a new site, and pretty much have to be resized for each site. It’s rather annoying, but there it is.

In my own page design, I searched a long time for some basis to pick a “standard” size, but eventualy despaired.

Jo

07 Oct 2009

18:21

Hi

Would you be able to show where the fold lies on the Bristol Airport heat map examples?

Thanks!

Matthew Smith

07 Oct 2009

19:03

Brilliant stuff Joe and Fiz. Really helpful to see the evidence provided by user testing. I love this stuff!

misteraidan

07 Oct 2009

21:42

gold.

Mikal Belicove

07 Oct 2009

22:37

Interesting post, however, established/successful brands (like Amazon, The New York Times, Play, and BBC) have a distinct advantage over nearly everyone else simply because they are established and successful. The same rules of design do not always apply to category leaders. Their brand is successful enough and their reputation trusted by enough people that they can afford to pay by a different set of rules. In addition, each of the ones you mentioned are by their very nature meant to be deep on content, so there to, the above the fold rules doesn’t necessarily apply. Just something to consider when continuing this conversation.

Bret Clement

07 Oct 2009

23:23

Great article. I am new to usability testing (starting working with a startup in the space). The eye tracking work is telling.

Dean Collins

07 Oct 2009

23:26

Thanks for a great article!

We often have to work with clients/print designers that just don’t grasp the concept that users do know how to use scrollbars and trying to fit all the content above the fold simply wont work.

Now we have a great article to refer them all to!

Cheers,
Dean (@bigclick_dean)

Al

07 Oct 2009

23:00

Great article, if now my boss would only listen to me. Hes convinced that a webpage should have no browser scrollbars and that inpage scrollbars are the way to go, ive been suffering with this for a long time, where i have to cram EVERYTHING into a 780x 540 space just so that my boss can see the webpage in his crappy 300yr old laptop.

Any suggestions to MAKE him come into the future?

Maicon Sobczak

07 Oct 2009

23:26

Thank you people of cxpartners for share this important informations. I will be back.

Erietta

08 Oct 2009

00:21

This article is a god send. I will definately be referring clients to this. Thank you!

Daniel

08 Oct 2009

00:46

This is a great article. I wish there was a university or some other public institution that could do research into the behaviors of web page users. Until then, I’ll have to use sites like usertesting.com – and articles like this one to debunk some of the ‘common sense’ that may not be such after all.

Chris K.

08 Oct 2009

01:50

Thanks for the article, really good read. Plan to share with our Interactive and Creative departments.

One question, did browser window size make or show any difference in your testing?

Interesting article. Still it is worth pointing out that there is a lot of evidence that suggests above and below the fold in *many* common situations does represent two distinct areas with dramatically lower interaction in the “below the fold” area. Your suggestions on how to design for fuller page exploration are interesting and I will share them with others I know. However I think the title “the Myth of the Page Fold” is catchy but not entirely accurate.

My counterexamples come from running controlled experiments such as A/B tests or multi-variable tests. The key differences are that we are considering millions of users and the users don’t know that they are in a test at the time. The second condition can have a big impact on measurements.

I see our two approaches as complementary and as part of my work, I strive towards combing disciplines such as experimentation, design and usability testing.

Curious to learn how you do eye tracking below the fold? Is the software factoring in the users scroll behavior in relation to their focus within the viewport?

Admittedly, I’ve never done eye tracking and so this might be a silly question. It just seems to be a technically challenging thing to do, no?

Thanks for a great post.

Jonathan Drain

08 Oct 2009

02:01

Well said.

Jakob Nielsen helped to popularize the myth that web users don’t scroll down. It led to an era of website design that crammed as much onto one page, leading to busy, crowded homepages. It wasn’t until later that early adopters of CSS made websites simple again, in part to avoid compatibility issues with Internet Explorer.

Very interesting. I’ve usually sat on the fence with this issue and erred on the side of caution by taking the fold into consideration when I felt it was required. Only sometimes though. If this information is accurate, there doesn’t seem to be any reason to bother with it any more.

I still think though – every designer should be aware of the fold so that important messages don’t get ‘shortened’ or taken out of context simply because someone was too lazy to scroll.

Thanks for sharing.

Bonita

08 Oct 2009

05:55

Great info here! This is important to keep in mind when designing a site.. Although people are fine with scrolling to find what they are looking for, it becomes a pain on sites where it is necessary to scroll past the header, graphics or promotions everytime you go to a new page. (Can’t quite recall which site I saw this on, but I didn’t stay on it for very long!)

When you scroll to find what you’re looking for, it’s less of a conscious mission than when you’re constantly scrolling to get “away” from certain sections.

Prasanna

08 Oct 2009

07:00

Nice! Good to have evidence on this!

Would absolutely love to see a similar study on emails!

How much of an email do people read, etc.

Thanks!

Toon

08 Oct 2009

07:52

I guess users are used to scrolling, but need to be triggered to do it. A cut-off image, one line of a paragraph of text,… will invite them to explore further.
I’ve been wondering whether the same holds true for news excerpts etc. you need to click on to get the entire article. I suspect it’s better to have them end halfway through a sentence to promote click-throughs, but I’m not sure. Any data on that?

Darren Alawi

08 Oct 2009

07:16

Great article guys, this is one of those myths decision makers stubbornly hang on to with no evidence apart from ‘that’s the way it’s always been’.

David

08 Oct 2009

07:22

The telling observation is “Have a small amount of content just visible, poking up above the fold to encourage scrolling.” and that is pretty intuitive.

Ed Wens

08 Oct 2009

08:14

At how many pixels down you think the page fold is nowadays? With monitors becoming bigger and bigger. But on the other hand, browsers have more and more toolbars. What’s a safe number?

Simon Jary

08 Oct 2009

08:10

Thanks for this interesting article!
Is there an established pixel depth for where the fold actually starts!
Thanks.

Joe Leech

08 Oct 2009

08:24

Hi JD,

I agree, cramming too much in seems to reduce scrolling, let the content ‘breath’ and give cues that there is more to come below the fold.

joe

Mr D

08 Oct 2009

08:39

At what resolution where your tests carried out? The fold obviously appears at different places on different screens and resolutions. Is there a recommended ‘fold peek position’. :)

Joe Leech

08 Oct 2009

08:15

Hi Chris,

Glad you find the article interesting. That’s exactly the reason we wrote it. We are always saying to clients the fold is not an issue but never had any real evidence only anecdotal experience. We needed to walk the walk rather than just talk the talk.

Ten to fifteen years ago, when fledgling web users were more familiar with newspapers and screen resolutions were smaller, it was a real factor in layout out a site. Nowadays, of course, web users have evolved – teenagers right now have grown up using the web and scrolling away, so it’s no longer the issue it was. Plus the increase in the base screen resolution gives that much more screen real estate to play with and let designs breathe a bit more.

David Travis

08 Oct 2009

09:19

I enjoyed your well-researched article but I’m not sure I agree with your conclusions.

There’s a difference between KNOWING you can scroll and actually scrolling the page. Your work clearly shows that people KNOW they can scroll the page — I think the fixation on the scroll bar is pretty conclusive evidence. But this doesn’t mean that people WILL scroll the page. The reason this matters is that people may take your article to mean, “It doesn’t matter what you show in the first screenful of information, because people scroll nowadays”. In fact, contextual observations of users interacting with over 65,000 web pages shows that most web pages (> 50%) are viewed for less than 10 seconds and 45% of all clicks happen in the top left quadrant of the page when seen above the fold (http://tinyurl.com/46bez4). This means the first screenful of information is absolutely critical.

You won’t observe this behaviour in an eye tracking usability test because you’re paying people to use the web site — scrolling the page is their job. They’re not going to spend 10s on the page, decide it’s useless and hit the back button, as they might do in the real world. There is a social pressure on the participant to look around the page and complete the task you’ve set. So you observe scrolling behaviour that probably wouldn’t happen outside the lab.

Neil

08 Oct 2009

09:09

Have you done any research into how people use the scroll wheel? That and larger monitors must be the biggest hardware change of the last decade.

Plus, from what I’ve seen, people actually *enjoy* using it.

William

08 Oct 2009

09:56

Although I support your hypothesis, I have some question/issues.

A) In the study what was the user being asked to do?

B) How was user attention measured? It seems that assumptions are being made about how gaze relates to comprehension.

C) How may users/site were researched to make this study? Or is this mostly anecdotal, or trend-based?

D) What was your hypothesis or assumption prior to this study?

I know it isn’t an academic study, but this is masquerading as fact without any real evidence.

Rob MacKay

08 Oct 2009

10:43

Great study. Fact is people scroll, do we really perceive users to be so retarded?

thx

Adam

08 Oct 2009

11:14

Interesting piece. Some recent, extensive, U&A testing across two of my corporation’s larger websites suggested to us that persistent requirement to scroll i.e. all pages having significant amount of content below the fold, was still a real problem. Task completion was adversely affected in enough instances for us to be compelled to act. It also proved a source of significant annoyance for our disabled users who employ assistive technologies like screen magnifiers, trackballs etc.

Rick Hurst

08 Oct 2009

11:25

On behalf of the entire web design and development community i’d like to thank you for doing this research and publishing this article – it gives us something solid to point the misinformed at! Expect this to be a *very* popular page long term!

Matt Farrar

08 Oct 2009

11:28

Once again this study should be taken in context. It is not quite as simple as performing a broad study on whether to put content above or below the fold. The most important study should be to understand the users/consumer/customer, and how relevant the fold is in the first place?

Think of this debate in a physical environment, are we actually saying that all bricks and mortar stores should be laid out like Tesco, or superdrug. The answer is No. Only if the consumer reacts to the environment better for this brand. We are all individuals and we all function differently. An experience needs to be relevant for the user. Above or below the fold is a non argument unless it is relevant for the audience. The BBC is an information site, like a news paper, so of course people don’t mind scrolling.

If I am purchasing a £60k motor car, then I want to watch a movie, i want to feel inspired to make a purchase. I need to feel like all is laid out infront of me as simple as possible. In this scenario, the scroll bar is an alien function and breaks down my interaction with the media.

So the process must be:

1) Understand the user
2) Understand the brand, reason for using the site
3) Build the architecture of the page based on 1 +2 above

Simple!

Lisat2

08 Oct 2009

12:59

Yes, very interesting indeed. But have to agree with William’s comment that the understanding your exact methodology would be more illuminating — particularly as your title comes on so strongly.

Jerome

08 Oct 2009

12:57

Interesting, but one thing I’d query. In your first heatmap image, does that orange spot on the right really show a user looking at the scrollbar? Given that the scroller is always at the top of a page if the page is scrollable, not near the bottom, as that heatmap shows…

Also, I’d have to agree that it might be a bit much to pull this from 800 sessions that probably all had different focuses. This is just a by product of those sessions, would that be a fair comment?

Opticalgirl

08 Oct 2009

13:29

Nothing annoys me more than a website that has NO content above the fold except for a whopping big logo or advert. This will encourage me to leave the site altogether.

simon

08 Oct 2009

16:48

It’s quite symptomatic that users not only avoided looking at the ads placed on the pages: they avoided looking at any content that was placed directly next to one.

Henk Poley

08 Oct 2009

17:14

There is still some folding. For example at http://www.dmt.de/ it looks like the page does not change when you navigate menu on a small screen (like an iPhone).

Pagealizer

08 Oct 2009

18:17

finding out how far people scroll down your page is very important – especially with long sales page and landing pages. In http://www.pagealizer.com we show scroll distance distribution so there is no need to guess if people see the whole page or just above the fold.

Chris Butler

08 Oct 2009

20:59

Fiz and Joe,

Great article. I’m going to pass this one around to our Project Managers who often have to explain this concept repeatedly to clients throughout the design process. The images you’re showing, particularly the comparison of successful brands with “long” pages and those that show the design barriers to scrolling, are very effective.

Last February, I wrote our newsletter on “designing for the web,” which included a section on this particular topic (http://www.newfangled.com/anticipating_changing_page_length_in_web_design). I’m also going to add a link to your article to the resources section of the newsletter. One thing that occurred to me as I wrote it was the relationship between users’ growing comfort or willingness to scroll and two particular technological developments: (1) the development of the mouse scroll wheel and now the notebook trackpad, and (2) the blog format (you can check out the article for some elaboration on that idea).

– Chris

Joe Leech

08 Oct 2009

21:32

@Chris G Thank you for the kind words

@Brad S Thank you

@Jo the fold was at 740px on our testing setup. I look to update the images on the post

@Al about convincing your boss, not sure I can help, but how much would a new laptop cost? $500? Maybe it’s worth upgrading him.

@Chris K

By default we set our test setup to force the viewable browser window to be 1024 x 740 px

@Christina thanks for the link to the Boxes and Arrows article. I hadn’t seen it but it is saying a lot of the same things we are. It’s great we can support the findings from AOL.

@Randy I agree, we are not saying place the important stuff where you want. The most important items should be placed above the fold, what we are saying is that you shouldn’t feel the need to cram everything in, let the content ‘breath’

@Andreas the participants can scroll the page so there is nothing fancy to calculate

@Jonathan wise words

@Jakob, thanks for commenting. I’d not come across the article by Tog. We wanted to write something that was easily digestable and as much as possible avoided jargon.

@ThatWebGuy I think you are wise to be cautious. Scrolling to get to the important content is a last resort. The most important stuff should be front and centre

@Bonita wise words

@Presanna we have done eyetracking on emails. As Randy said before people do scroll but not surprisingly the longer the email the less likely users are to read the stuff at the bottom. The key with emails is short paragraphs and clear headers.

@Toon stopping a sentence part way through seems a bit drastic. If you get the first paragraph right people will click. In radio they call it the ‘tease’. That is you set up the story rather than revealing all the content.

@Darren thanks for the kind words

@David it is an intuitive idea to have a little content poking above the fold but you’d be surprised about how many sites fail

@Ed it’s almost impossible to say exactly, we try and work it to be between 700 and 800px

@Simon no there is no actual defined page fold, there are some rules of thumb but almost every person will have it in a different place (both browser window and screen size factor)

@Mr D our set up was at 1024 x 740, we try and look at 700 – 800px depth

@Robert F I agree completely, the argument is an old one, but one that we and it seems others who have commented on this post face all the time in our working life. Yes the title is dramatic, and I really hope we’re better writers than Dan Brown ;)

@David T I agree the first page of content is critical. We are trying to argue that the cramming everything into the area above the fold reduces the impact of that content. In an ideal world we could fit everything in above the fold, but realistically that can never happen , having to scroll is not optimal, but it is not to ignored.

@Neil, re the scroll wheel, no research as such, but people do comment if the mouse we use doesn’t have one. We are seeing many more users familiar with trackpads rather than mice. Infact a trend we’ve seen recently among older users is that they have only ever used a laptops so are not good at using a mouse

@William, @Lisat2 a)users were recruited with a task in mind they needed to complete, be it booking a holiday or looking to book parking at an airport. They then completed the tasks unaided on the website.
b)The gaze plots are based on fixation length. I agree with your citation that this is no indication of cognitive process. But here we are not basing any assumptions on processing of any kind, we are making assumptions based on behaviour, i.e that people scroll when on websites. Design of websites should support scrolling.

c)The evidence here is based on over 800 tests

d)No assumption, this is an amalgam of all the studies we have completed.

I disagree this is ‘masquerading as fact without any real evidence’ in over 800 tests only on three occasions (8 users in total) have people not physically scrolled the page.

@Rob M I agree, we need to give our users more credit!

@Adam very good point about users with disabilities. Again, scrolling is not the optimal solution. All we are trying to say is that if there is a lot of content don’t cram it in

@Rick H. Kind words, thank you

@Matt F I agree, we have worked on a number of sites for automotive manufactures. We wouldn’t want to design for scrolling as much here.

@Jerome We are referring to the bottom position of the dark area used to show page height on the scrollbar. Yes, this was not the focus of 800 sessions. However the focus of every session was the user experience. If users weren’t scrolling and finding the stuff they wanted, we noted that. In effect we were looking for the evidence to disprove everything we’ve said here

bigyaz

08 Oct 2009

22:38

Very nice comeback to Jakob: “We wanted to write something that was easily digestable and as much as possible avoided jargon.”

Mike Riley

08 Oct 2009

22:00

The really interesting thing about this is that I think the myth of the fold was most likely a self-reinforced notion, people regularly put horizontal lines right near the fold, which probably just kept making people think that it was “the fold” preventing them from scrolling, when really it was just their lines!

Nathan Cocks

08 Oct 2009

22:46

Great article though I’m not convinced the fold is not worth worrying about. It is something you should keep in mind for your overall information architecture on the page. Acknowledge this is the first thing people will see and make sure this space gives the user a reason to explore further. People won’t explore a page because they think there is certain information there they need to feel that by taking an action they will find what they want. The purpose of this above the fold area is to tell the visitor that upfront but keeping the fold in mind does not mean you avoid long pages just you acknowledge how they work.

Anyway the thing I did want to say was a massive thank you for alerting people to the dangers of horizontal bars. I’ve seen these artificial content ‘floors’ kill more potential conversions than Elvis has had fried peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

It is always nice to see other people’s testing back up your own observations.

Cheers.

However the one thing

Uri

08 Oct 2009

23:40

From working on several sites with high volume of traffic –

He results reflect the truth, but not the whole truth. There are some situations that are hard to emulate in user testing. SEO traffic, landing on a branch page on a site they encounter for the first time hardly ever scrolls (for most sites, that is the majority of their traffic, although not always the ‘quality’ traffic). Advertisers know that all too well when it comes to banner clickthrough e.g. on video sharing sites and the same goes for video recommendations, links, etc.

Object above the fold in branch pages of sites that have a high percentage of SEO traffic have a CTR higher by factors than their counterparts below.

Denise Brown

08 Oct 2009

23:36

Great thought provoking article as evidenced by the robust dialog exchange. The site examples are in the article are B2C focused. I’m curious what your findings were with brands that target businesses, particularly those focusing on technology products. In my experience I found that B2B visitors do not like to spend time scrolling down a page and will jump off if they don’t find what they were searching for above the fold rather than take the time to scroll.

Corey

08 Oct 2009

23:28

Great article! Very interesting insight.

Peggy

09 Oct 2009

03:04

Interesting, but all they quote is where people are scrolling/clicking, and not what they are actually buying. I wonder if that pair of shoes at the top outsells other stuff? I think money talks. Similar studies with landing pages tell us not only above the fold, but *single click* pages convert best. Is there more info? I’d like to hear more of the story, and I’m more than willing to admit my own bias.

Roman Zenner

09 Oct 2009

04:07

Working in the eCommerce field it’s good to see that one does not necessarily have to cram all products into the tiny portion above the fold. After all, it’s 2009 and by now, not only geeks should be familiar with that funny little bar on the right.

Prasanna

09 Oct 2009

04:35

Thanks Joe. I’ve rarely seen an author on a blog reply in such detail, to all posts :)

@Mike R Absolutely, those horizontal lines across the page can be a real barrier

@Nathan C You are completely right, important stuff front and centre, trust people will scroll. I like the term ‘floor’ to describe the horizontal lines

@Uri we have the seen the same in user testing we’ve done on SEO landing pages. The stuff front and centre has to be the stuff people are searching for. It’s of course true that content above the fold will convert SEO, what we are saying is that users do scroll, that secondary content need no be crammed in and most important encourage scrolling!

@Denise B as for B2B focus, we’ve tested plenty of B2B sites and if anything they match B2C findings. Of course people don’t like to scroll to find the content they want but they do. See my comment to Uri above to help.

@Corey Thank you

@Peggy yes, stuff above the fold converts better, but think long tail, not everyone wants the same pair of shoes…

@Roman you are right. People move on. So does behaviour.

@Presanna I love to talk, what can I say!

Depesh Mandalia

09 Oct 2009

11:02

Great article, experts I’ve discussed this issue with agree the fold is not the be all and end all of a web page, however from experience you need to design the page such that it is apparant that there is potentially something useful below the fold and to provide a scent.

The First Choice example is a typical one which detracts the user from viewing what may be relevant information further down. Design and layout are key to providing not only a visual queue to scroll down but to ensure there are no blocks such as the horizontal bar.

What I would add is that the type of website will lend itself to scrolling/not scrolling down as well as the method of entry. As mentioned above, not only is a site like BBC.co.uk well known as a brand, but users know it is an informational site thus you may be more inclined to scroll. In addition if I’m searching for a cheap flight, landing on a page, if I don’t see something relevant above the fold it is highly unlikey that I will scroll down. However if I’m viewing that same page after clicking a link from the homepage I am more likely to scroll.

That’s why with user testing in lab conditions it is vitally important to check your analytics tool to view where the page sits in the customer journey (i.e. % of first visit & referrer etc)

ritchielee

09 Oct 2009

11:29

I’d just like to add that horizontal elements are not the primary design concern. What really matters is showing that sections run off the ‘page’. This is done nicely on this site by bordering the entire content. amazon.com and play.com also do it well by making sure that some of the content panels are bordered. This is what gives the feel that there is more. The example solution in this article has no such indicators and it is purely luck that the images are cut in half – indicating more.

Joe Leech

09 Oct 2009

11:49

@Depesh good points well made

@Richie A good point about the borders around items indicating more content below the fold. I’ll add a link direct to your comment on this.

To sum up, I love the thoughts around it being ok to scroll but I think that there’s a miss on what “Above the Fold” should really be used for. It’s not just the start of your content, it’s a hook and an elevator pitch for the rest of the page.

Jason

09 Oct 2009

20:54

awesome article, very useful information, thanks.

Michael Rezac

10 Oct 2009

15:15

Great article. I’ll be making frequent stops here. This reaffirms what I’ve been saying to my teams for years.

Thanks again.

Jonathan

11 Oct 2009

18:37

As the designer of the First Choice Holidays page given as an example of how people will not scroll if they think the page has ended, let me say that it was those pesky graphic designers that did it! Ok, ok it was my fault…

Tom

12 Oct 2009

08:12

I’m sure this’ll get lost in the sea of comments, but a small point about the screen resolution and where the ‘fold’ apeared to be:

You said around 700px, but in reality on a 1024×768 monitor the fold is closer to 600px. This takes in account for browser chrome (with a few toolbars, typically) and the Windows start bar / Mac header bar.

Other than that, agree with everything. The only problem is that many clients still don’t want to know, and take the fold as gospel.

Drazen Mobenovich

12 Oct 2009

11:44

Joe Leech’s analysis seems rather interesting (despite him looking like a young Shane McGowan). I can’t decide whether the observation about people looking at the scroll bar is circular reasoning or not though. If they scroll, they will look at the scroll bar, but if they don’t scroll they would not. It seems like you’d need to discount that finding as it’s too ambiguous in determining whether or not people have a propensity to scroll past the fold.

Alistair

12 Oct 2009

11:04

This doesn’t convince me in the slightest, the A/B test layouts in the heatmaps are not very similar and even seem to have different content. I cannot evaluate what the origial and changed content is because the images pages shown are obscured by the heatmaps.

The test environment needs to be described. Who was being tested, how many poeple, how old are they and how much expereince did they have using the web? Were you simply test ‘homepage-style’ layouts? How many layouts were tested?

The test should ideally consist of two content blocks, one above the fold and one for below the fold of equal size. These two blocks should be switched without internal layout of the block or content of the block being altered.

Each of these blocks should also have different layouts tested.

Heatmaps aren’t enough evidence, the test should include how many clicks each content block recieves in each position.

We also need track the time of the acquasistion of a click, does less content above the fold mean it takes longer for people to click on an item, and does this mean it’s harder to find because they have to scroll?

A shop might want to promote a single item for a week but a news site has numerous articles almost of equal importance that need to be emphasied. Tests need to be placed in context.

Frankly this is not a very scientific test and there are a number of agents which could have been tested in a rudemantary closed system (ie not redefinable production sites) to give better results.

All that you seem to be doing is delaying the paradox of choice. Sometimes these choices are more effeciently served first so decisions can be made quickly.

I will be keeping links above the fold for now.

Robert Rawlins

12 Oct 2009

12:27

This is an excellent piece of research, I love articles like this, we often have debates in our team here about the way content should be designed and It’s always been my gut instinct that trying to cram everything above the fold is counter productive.

I know when working on our initial site design concept we talked about designing the site in a way which meant the user never had to scroll, I really didn’t like that approach as I felt it meant the content suffered and that ultimately is the core concern of the design, to deliver the content in an easy to read manor.

I like having studies like this to support my argument, thanks!

Rob

Joe Leech

12 Oct 2009

12:11

@Neil A: Thank you

@Josh H: I agree with you, there simply isn’t enough space here to go into what should or shouldn’t be above the fold, but yes the more important stuff should be above the fold

@Jason: Now worries :)

@Michael R: Everyone knows it’s true but it’s great to be able to gather some evidence

@Jonathan: Great work on the redesign. Blame DJ for the initial one ;)

@Tom: It’s not lost! It’s a tricky thing to exactly say where the fold lies for each and every set-up.
Fight the good fight, I use this evidence with clients yet it’s still and issues that doesn’t go away. See you at BUG sometime soon.

@Drazen: I’ve never been likened to Shane MacGowan before. Not sure what to make of that, hopefully I have better teeth and drink a little less.

Users look at the scroll bar and then make the decision to scroll, the scroll bar is a cue that there is more content below the fold not an indication of scrolling. Many of our users did not use the scroll bar to scroll but instead used the scroll wheel on the mouse.

Joe Leech

12 Oct 2009

12:13

@Alistair: I completely agree. Of course page position effects the number of clicks a item gets. Above the fold items get more clicks than below. That stands to reason.

We are simply saying people scroll, the fold is a barrier but not an insurmountable one as many believe it to be, content should not be squeezed into the top of the screen. Squeezing content above the fold is not a replacement for clear, well laid out design that encourages exploration.

You are perfectly correct to keep your important links above the fold not just for now but for good.

@Robert R: Thank you for the kind words. Dogmatic design rules like ‘content should be above the fold’ and ‘no more than three clicks’ to content and often a poor substitute for the craft skills in our profession.

ben_

12 Oct 2009

13:58

Couldn’t you guys have come up with this a few years earlier? It would have saved us all lots of meetings and many grey hairs. :)

Dave Ellis

12 Oct 2009

13:37

Do people still think that users don’t scroll? If they do, that’s not the impression I get. I do get asked quite a lot to put certain calls to action ‘above the fold’ but the fact remains, calls to action that can be seen without scrolling are going to get more eyes on them than calls to action that can’t be seen without scrolling. No amount of user testing is going to disprove that.

It’s a matter of prioritising information.

Dave

12 Oct 2009

13:59

Thanks! Will definitely be useful for future client discussions.

Adrian

12 Oct 2009

14:39

Great discussion. This eye-tracking is definitley going to dis-prove a lot of myths on how the user actually behaves when browsing the web.

Charlie

12 Oct 2009

15:09

This is a really great article, disproving a very popular myth.

For me, scrolling is just part of modern internet use, particularly when using small netbook/laptop/phone screens. It is perhaps notable that scrolling is made very easy in modern day internet use by browsing technology that include scroll balls/wheels and easy trackpad/touchscreen scrolling.

Keep up the good work!

Ed

12 Oct 2009

19:38

So… what about SERPs, or did I miss something here? I can’t remember anyone ever really talking about how they thought that having information below the fold hurt the websites usability… only search engine visibility, and this has been documented across the web day in and day out. I agree I don’t think it’s the end all be all of page design and usability, but it’s a definate must for SERPs. Even in your designs that you use as examples… they present content above the fold as to define what their pages are in reference to. I think it’s important to state this so that people don’t get the wrong idea…

Nice article… Thanks – Ed

Sophie Henry

12 Oct 2009

20:19

Thanks for an article that supports what I have been telling clients now for years. The biggest problem is the borders around content that makes it look like there is nothing below. Many Marcom-type sites have that and it’s such an easy mistake to avoid.
The only cases where I recommend worrying about the fold are when there is some sort of in-page action. For example: drag & drop or a form with immediate feedback.

Fran Jeanes

12 Oct 2009

23:10

I think yes, you will get more eyeballs on calls to action above the fold but in this day and age, come on, people scroll! They always have done. When the majority of users are immersed in mobile web then the design and scrolling issue will be a major topic for discussion.

I have had many clients that would rather sacrifice the great look of their site’s clean lines and white space to cram stuff in above the fold. It drives me crazy sometimes, so I wrote about it here: http://bit.ly/1n5cS4.

Thanks for the article.

Alex B.

13 Oct 2009

08:10

A point that’s worth mentioning is how easy it has become to scroll: ever since the wheel mouse came out was at least 7 years ago!) scrolling has been easy. The next big leap will be Apple’s iPhone finger swipe transferred onto Microsoft’s surface, i.e. gestural scrolling and no mouse anymore.

And yes! obviously there has to be somme indication of more content further down the page (independant of resolution and the miriad of client screens out there). I mean above and beyond scroll bar positioning, which is something only geeks understand (speaking as a geek, of course).

And no! nobody (except your mum and participants in a user test) scroll just for the sake of it, to see if there’s content on your page.

Oh! and by the by, I couldn’t comment in IE7 (on XP pro SP2) – there are coding errors. Fire whoever coded this!

Alex B.

13 Oct 2009

08:14

A point that’s worth mentioning is how easy it has become to scroll: ever since the wheel mouse came out (was at least 7 years ago!) scrolling has been easy. The next big leap will be Apple’s iPhone finger swipe transferred onto Microsoft’s surface, i.e. gestural scrolling and no mouse anymore.

And yes! obviously there has to be somme indication of more content further down the page (independant of resolution and the miriad of client screens out there). I mean above and beyond scroll bar positioning, which is something only geeks understand (speaking as a geek, of course).

And no! nobody (except your mum and participants in a user test) scroll just for the sake of it, to see if there’s content on your page.

Oh! and by the by, I couldn’t comment in IE7 (on XP pro SP2) – there are coding errors. Fire whoever coded this!

Malcolm Sleath

13 Oct 2009

11:57

Three points:

1) Your thesis is completely wrong, which explains why I didn’t get this far down the page and didn’t post.

2) I keep seeing people direct selling fitness manuals, how to succeed in business and so on, using pages on the web that require a lot of scrolling. They all have too much in common to be coincidence. There are one or more direct marketers out there on a percentage who are putting their money where your research is.

3) I’m an amateur at this lark, but I’m now looking at the whole thing differently. It’s about involving someone above the fold so that they want to scroll down. To help them, you remove barriers like horizontal lines and position content that says, “Look there’s more here”. Rule of thumb, but hey, I’ve got to start somewhere.

Malcolm 12boxes.com

Stewart Sear

13 Oct 2009

11:13

Now that people have such large monitors and resolutions (I’ve got a Mac with a resolution 0f 1920 x 1200) I’ve been wondering how large people actually have their browsers. For example, I don’t have my browser set to fill my screen, I usually have 3 or 4 browser windows open at a time, and resize them randomly depending on the content of the site(s) I’m on. So, just because resolution sizes are bigger, are browser windows actually bigger? Would be interesting to know.

Chris Lorensson

13 Oct 2009

13:32

I love the topic – very interesting. I tend to try and design sites so that everything is interesting, and get people into a place where they want to explore.

As always, content is king, but it must be usable, compelling and well-designed.

Uri

13 Oct 2009

13:17

I run user testing my clients (some of which are in the Alexa 100). I’ve been doing it for 19 years now (yes, software too).

It is a useful tool, but it cannot predict certain behaviours, situations and states of mind. The most common source of traffic on most large scale sites is search traffic. The most common entry point is a leaf (item) page, not the homepage.

Best chances are (unless you’re an Amazon or Ebay brandwise):

1. User does not know what the site is.
2. User doesn’t care about your brand just yet.
3. User is not paying much attention and is willing to click away very quickly.

All of the above are hard to impossible to emulate when user testing. Stats of site that were designed with knowledge of scrolling obstacles contradict results of these user tests.

In the comments there’s much wishful thinking from designers ‘ that’s what I’ve been telling my clients for years’. Or assumptions like ‘c’mon people know how to scroll’. The truth is, it’s not that straight forward and designers should be greatful for it – after all, we’re paid to think.

Fiz Yazdi

13 Oct 2009

14:42

@ ben: There will always be meetings, and I suspect more grey hairs but I’ll get working on the time machine now :)

@ Dave Ellis: We’re so lucky working in this field as we get to see users in action every day. For people who don’t it’s understandable that they worry that users don’t scroll. We get asked about it all the time. You’re absolutely right, it is all about prioritising information – the most important stuff should be front and centre

@ Dave: Thanks – glad you found it useful

@ Adrian: Thanks for commenting. I think it’s got to the point where the discussion is more interesting than the article ;) The eye tracking does add a great dimension to user testing

Fiz Yazdi

13 Oct 2009

15:19

@ Charlie: Great comment – scrolling is just part of modern internet use and made easy by supportive technology. I’d almost go as far as to say that it feels like a natural movement to me now. Thanks for the kind posting

@ Ed: Thanks Ed, interesting comment

@ Sophie Henry: Exploration below the fold can be discouraged by poorly designed elements. You’re so right, it is an easy mistake to avoid and an easy thing to put right. Great points re: drag & drop and immediate form feedback. Thanks for making them

@ Fran Jeanes: Thanks Fran. As you say in your article, targeted long copy is a winner

Fiz Yazdi

13 Oct 2009

16:09

@ Alex B: Good points. The iPhone finger swipe is even fun to do, speaking as a geek. Perhaps I should downgrade that to ‘is a very rewarding way to scroll’. Thanks for the bug tip, we’re on it

@ Malcolm Sheath: “Look, there’s more here”. Sums it all up very nicely

@ Stewart Sear: Terrific point which resonates with my own use of browser windows – and I guess other people with a high resolution set up. Would make for an interesting study…..

James Warfield

14 Oct 2009

07:39

Thanks guys. Finally some research and strong rationale to put this issue to bed.

Jonas

14 Oct 2009

11:21

Great article. I have always suspected that.

What I seen in several cases is that a lot of people don´t necessarily scroll content inside a scrollable box on the page (like a widget with the latest news for example)

Mike

14 Oct 2009

13:36

If anyone needs evidence that people will scroll, this webpage has to be it!!! :-)

Michael Daehn

15 Oct 2009

15:00

Great study. I even SCROLLED down to read the comments ;)

Fiz Yazdi

15 Oct 2009

16:01

@ Chris Lorensson: Content absolutely is king. Good content is what makes people explore. And then they will scroll. Thanks Chris

@ Uri: Thanks for reminding us that it’s not always straight forward. We just wanted to share what we have seen in our user testing – that people scroll. And that there are design tips you can employ to encourage scrolling

@ James Warfield: Thanks for your kind words

Mike

16 Oct 2009

22:04

I scrolled to the very bottom and read most of the comments. This is a great weapon against those pesky PGMs that keep saying lets keep everything above the fold.

I always knew that people would scroll. Blogs scroll and people read those right? As a test I added a little button on my site that scrolls for days. It says “Magic Button” on it and out of 4K unique hits daily I get just under 3K in clicks on that button. It goes to a page that says “I knew you would click that button”, an shows an ad. It’s an easy way to test.

I’m not going to post the site – Not looking for promotion -Just want to comments on a great article.

Mike

Kenichi Suzuki

16 Oct 2009

22:09

Great article.
May I introduce this article to my readers on my blog with translation into Japanese? (I’m a Japanese webmatser.) I will promise to give you a credit.

Fiz Yazdi

19 Oct 2009

09:48

@Jonas: we see that to – especially when the box is too small for the amount of content presented/required. Thanks for commenting

@Mike:in black & white :-)

@ Michael Daehn: thanks very much

@Mike: Pass the site on – I’d like to see the Magic Button for myself! Thanks

@ Kenichi Suzuki: we would be very happy for you to introduce this article to your readers. Thank you very much for your interest in this article, and for your kind words

Very interesting findings; however, I’m not exactly sure what to do with them. All this proves is that people scroll, but doesn’t speak to the impact on metrics/conversions. Naive designers, upon hearing this, could be led to take design liberties at the cost of their stakeholders business needs; thereby, comprising their project.

The missing link is a statistically significant quantitative (A/B) test. Until then, it’s very difficult to come to any truly insightful conclusions.

-isaacw

Ed Cehi

21 Oct 2009

16:39

@Isaac… YES! Thank You! Finally someone else that recognizes this… Design doesn’t mean squat without conversions! It doesn’t matter how the site is designed until you can do some A/B testing to see how your niche demographic searches the web and reads your website. Every demographic is different, and I here to tell you that relevant content “above the fold” is the winner in the search engine wars!

-EdC

Fiz Yazdi

22 Oct 2009

14:36

@Karl Gilis: Thanks for the link to your article. We are saying many of the same things – the most effective place for content is above the fold, and make sure your design communicates to people that there is more for them to see below. We see that visitors will scroll if the design supports them to.

@Isaac Weinhausen: Thanks, friendly is what we were after.

For all the naive designers out there (although I haven’t met many) business critical content should go above the fold! Just don’t feel the pressure to cram all your content in above the fold

Jin

23 Oct 2009

14:35

Joe and Fiz,

Great article. I think what’s important is that the area above the fold needs to be designed well, even if the users do scroll. This area gives users the important “first impression.” It says a lot about a web site’s elegance and branding.

You guys are way off base on the first part of the article concerning the “page fold.” If I went to a website “looking” for something specific or find the site interesting from previous visit, “ect ect” surely page folds have no effect. But if I am a new visitor, am clueless to the contents of the site, or am uninterested, obviously a page fold is needed to grab my attention and the likeliness to stay there longer (therefore seeing more content.) After that I won’t mind the “long, long” scrolling as you called it. That part you are right about. ( and most of the rest )

Joe Leech

26 Oct 2009

09:48

@Jin I really like the article, there are some great tips in there, good work.

@Unclosedmind Yes you are correct, the article simple says users scroll, we’ve offered some tips to encourage scrolling. No designer in their right mind would put the main content below the fold.

John Ellis

29 Oct 2009

11:59

Hi guys,

Some really nice points in your article and good to see them supported by some user testing info.

I wrote an article a few months ago about the fold, that also presented the argument that using the ‘above the fold web design’ principle is not really that relevant in today’s web design.

Interesting and informative read. This is exactly what needs to be explained to a majority of clients who just want everything above the “fold”. There has to be scrolling if the site is large enough (content-wise) and that’s why there is this thing called vertical scroll bars!

You are dead right that important stuffs should go above the fold and other contents should just peek through the bottom to give a hint of “Hey I’m down here too!”.

Thanks for the article and lets’ have some more of these.

Joe Conlin

03 Nov 2009

00:36

I have to say that while I agree with you in that people will scroll, I also believe (strongly) in making sure that the most relevant content/links are above the fold.

I have watched heatmaps on client sites for years (been doing this since 1995) and click activity is clearly much higher above the fold not to mention a reduction in bounce rate. To reference sites such as Amazon, BBC or the New York Times is not a fair assessment for the average site owner that might be reading this post. They do NOT have the same credibility as these other sites. When a visitor goes to Amazon, they already know to keep looking until they find what they are looking for because it will be there.

For a typical website, potentially paying to market their website (PPC, SEO or whatever), it is important to capture a visitors attention BEFORE they click the back button and become another “bounce” statistic. This is done most effectively by placing the most relevant content above the fold…

Joe Leech

03 Nov 2009

09:23

@John E That’s a great article

@Bhupal thank you

@Joe C Yes I agree, we are not suggesting the most important content be below the fold, that’s just plain silly. We’ve done some work on this with a big e-commerce company and sure enough users do scroll if they don’t find what they are looking for above the fold.

David Leonhardt

05 Nov 2009

19:09

@Joe Leech Ideally they find everything they need above the fold. If there is information they need below the fold, ideally there is a button above the fold to get there (just as if the below-the-fold info was another page altogether. Yes, I know, I know, not always possible, but I can dream, can’t I?

Ben Crothers

11 Nov 2009

01:47

Brilliant article and well-demonstrated research, thank you. This is a perennial issue I face with clients, and some other designers. This is once of the issues that clients find easy to understand, so they never let go of it! Meanwhile, there’s loads of other issues that will be far more worthy of their attention.

Also, great to see how you show that user interface design AND graphic design contribute to encouraging people to scroll!

Thanks again.

kimee

12 Nov 2009

15:02

hi~ that was what i was looking for the evidence of my design. I designed http://www.gangnam.go.kr/ site in Korea..
how you think? would you mind give any advice for that site? I would be really appriciate.

James Guest

13 Nov 2009

10:37

Excellent evidence to back up the reoccurring debate I have frequently with clients on this subject. Many thanks.

Brad C.

18 Nov 2009

21:13

Have you done or seen quantitative A/B testing across multiple user acquisition focused sites to see if your qualitative tests hold up? Or maybe others have done this? eye tracking and qualitative studies are one thing, but every company should still do quantitative A/B or multivariate testing to see what converts users to buy/sign-up/engage, etc. ecommerce sites with a lot of products (Amazon, Play.com) and news sites with a lot of content (NY Times, BBC) are going to have pretty different results than sites in other many other industries.

Marja Bonn

23 Nov 2009

13:55

Excellent article, backs up what I’ve discovered als with my clients.

Wolf Schumacher

25 Nov 2009

02:01

Great article as it confirms my thinking that people like myself like scrolling to where the gems in the content are. I don’t care if it is above or below the fold. I also like scrolling better than accessing the content on another page just for the sake of keeping everything on one page above the fold. I tweeted about this: @wschumac

Kai

25 Nov 2009

14:43

What’s the point of this article? You are saying ‘the fold is important, but people do scroll down’. Anything we don’t know?

gem

25 Nov 2009

19:42

Fantastic article. Takes old knowledge on design to current level.

Randy Murray

09 Dec 2009

12:27

Excellent work. The eye tracker work is hard to argue with.

Andy Gale

15 Dec 2009

10:29

I’m a bit late in reading it but I’ll be sending this article to anyone who mentions the word “fold” to me. Thanks!

Deepu Balan

16 Dec 2009

08:59

Thanks for this wonderful post… Really worth reading.

-Deepu

Jim Prior

17 Dec 2009

11:21

What I reckon would be interesting to know, is the number of computers that don’t have scroll wheels, or some other kind of pseudo-scrolling method. Web stats tell us things like screen res, what OS, which browser versions, and so on, pity they can’t indicate the scrolling capabilities.

Larger monitor sizes are becoming more the norm now. But I wonder how many people do NOT have scroll wheels which makes scrolling less easy. Sometimes it surprises me how many people still use 800×600, or the occasional oddball who uses 640×480! Even handhelds have better resolutions than that.

For some things I think Above-the-fold does matter. A good example of the “above the fold” point is the number of people who place Adsense ads on their websites to make money, but say they never make much from it. A key element to success is placing the ads above the fold, generally right at the top of the page, so they’re the first thing people see. (Plus tailoring the ad appearance, as much as you can, not to look like an ad, but as if it is just part of the normal page content). When I did that consistently through my personal sites, my earnings quadrupled, perhaps even more. The other important thing is good SEO to get the traffic!

Mike

17 Dec 2009

11:45

What about scrolling horizontally? Ther are a lot of sites that don’t handle width very well.

Any feedback on that in your research?

pascal

17 Dec 2009

15:50

Amazon actually cares A LOT about the fold, as you can see… everything important is above the fold. I don’t get your point. Obviously the fold is extremely important ?! any A/B testing at large scale would prove you that it’s obvious

Mathew Todd

17 Dec 2009

19:52

Larger monitors may be becoming the norm on desktops, and even laptops. But people are using these things less and less. Now we’re using smart phones, Wii’s & DS’s, netbooks, and other devices that may or may not resemble traditional computers to gain access to HTML/HTTP content.

Google has an interesting tool showing the statistical likelihood of what users would see before the fold.

The point of this article seems to be “Put the most important things above the fold, because first impressions and easy access matter, but don’t freak out about putting _everything_ above the fold.

I’ve noticed another, tangentially related design detail out there “in the wild” but haven’t seen the research that supports it: In-site toolbars at the bottom of the page don’t go all the way to the edges of the screen. For example, Facebook’s “presence” bar has 15px of left and right padding.

I suspect that this prevents the bar from appearing to be part of the browser and thus being ignored by users. I’m curious if anyone’s seen research to support this design meme?

Ben Spencer

18 Dec 2009

09:25

@pascal

You’ve answered your own question – ‘Everything important is above the fold’.

That’s true, but there is also a lot more content below it. The point that is being made is don’t try and cram *everything* above it.

Gabriel

22 Dec 2009

21:04

We’ve put our own two cents in on this on our blog. The long and short is that while people scroll, and it doesn’t matter in the way people think, it does matter what people find in the first split second they get to your site. Sites like Amazon have designs that work because of who they are. Anyhow, our post on the matter: http://bit.ly/6I1rvl

Rusty

15 Jan 2010

17:14

aka: Abovethafolditus

Description: Cram everything above the fold so that it’s all junked up and cluttered as hell.

Dave

18 Jan 2010

23:57

@Rusty: Exactly.

Abovethefolditis is the symptom. Failure to choose the ONE thing that the page is about is the cause. Advertising is perhaps the greatest contributor to that failure.

Erik

19 Jan 2010

20:28

I don’t think anybody is arguing that below the fold content is never seen or that users are too lazy to scroll if they don’t immediately find what they’re looking for. The first thing your users see in the view port however, should always be a consideration.

Would it be smarter of Amazon for instance, to use that massive sale ad on their home page or do that thing where they show the last set of products I browsed? Which is more likely to result in an impulse buy if I had just intended to use the home page for its global nav or search bar?

For the love of all that’s holy, don’t cram all your content to avoid scrolling, but don’t take to the opposite extreme and pretend that the fold is irrelevant. If it was, we could devote it completely to ad space and make people scroll for the global nav without repercussions.

I respect data but I think this may be a classic forest for the trees example of confusing ‘duh’ for discovery. Yes, after people have loaded a page and they don’t find the content they wanted, they will scroll for it. Does that prove that it’s the best experience you can offer or merely that people will tolerate a little bit of effort to get to what they want?

And yes, when you ask people in a group they’re being paid to be a part of whether they think scrolling is a hassle they’re not likely to want to be labeled ‘the difficult one’ no matter how much you make it clear you want their honest opinion. Especially in the UK if your comedians are lampooning real cultural phenomenons.

Sorry but I think logic trumps data on this one. I do think eyeball tracking is neat and useful for studying layout flow but it doesn’t prove half the things people seem to think it does.

Likewise, whether something should or shouldn’t go above the fold isn’t a true/false scenario to be tested out in a lab or bandied about as an iron clad best practice. It’s a qualitative evaluation of what’s most important for users to have access to or see right away in light of your specific goals and your specific users’ wants/needs. That’s what design is all about.

Andew Male

20 Jan 2010

06:01

Great article! In our experience the client is always very concenred to put as much info as possible above the fold; it seems to be ‘the thing’ right now. It is always very useful to find testing evidence to show the good and bad of this approach.

Brian Artka

01 Feb 2010

19:49

@Al:

If your boss is the only person using your website, you are stuck.. if not, explain to him(or her) that other users do not, in any way shape or form, browse on the same machine as him, with the same screen size as him, or in the same way as him.. There are too many variables out there to design based on one person’s ways… even if he/she is the “boss”.

B

ecommer

02 Feb 2010

20:58

The solution would be to add some content above the fold compelling enough to make visitors scroll down to find out more.

Dave

08 Feb 2010

17:32

Part of the solution is to have compelling content above the fold. Part of the solution is to design your page so that it doesn’t look like it ends at the fold.

WSz

13 Feb 2010

02:20

I always get clients that don’t want their websites to scroll, like that is at all feasible. With the surge of mobile browsers (e.g., iPhone), site designers have to evolve, and simply packing everything above the fold is a ridiculous solution. I try to explain to them the sea of different resolutions out there, and that designing a website for their monitors isn’t how it’s done. It’s surprising how many don’t fully understand the fluidity of the web. But I digress.

It’s nice to have some empirical evidence behind something I had always deep downed believed to be true. A shame that when Nielsen original came out with that discovery, people chose to adopt a “baby with the bathwater” approach. I’m glad you did a much more robust study and have provided that data for the public. It doesn’t change the way I design, but it may perhaps sway those stubborn clients that are unwilling to shed archaic design theories.

Great job!

Dean

16 Mar 2010

23:19

I agree with Erik and other comments that temper the findings that the the fold isn’t a barrier. It is – but there are design solutions that can help to resolve it.

It concerns me that so many comments on here seem to imply that they aren’t going to worry about designing optimally for above the fold.

I’m sure each of the sites you show as evidence that successful brands don’t worry about it, have indeed considered very carefully what they place above the fold.

And heat maps aren’t always accurate without context. People stare at things when they are confused too.

Regards,

Dean.

Dave Land

22 Mar 2010

16:12

From Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox, March 22, 2010: Scrolling and Attention

Web users spend 80% of their time looking at information above the page fold. Although users do scroll, they allocate only 20% of their attention below the fold.

It’s not that being “above the fold” doesn’t matter, it only matters 80% of the time :-).

Peter

01 Jul 2010

17:31

A lot of web designers and other concerned parties do scroll deep into the page it seems. I must say I do rate both the original article and virtually all of the above comments and I did read them all.

If the authors are still monitoring this page, Google has about 3/4 months ago in the UK. Started adding ‘jump to’ links to pages with internal links. If this appears widely in Google’s listing this could really break – ‘the page fold myth’ – any comment from the authors.

Pixelbox Design

18 Jul 2010

18:07

Excellent Article, Added to favs, keep up the good work.

chambres d’hotes

28 Aug 2010

13:41

Thanks,

This is a great article and a great website. I liked it very much. It will help me to optimise my websites in europe. I have website in travel and that meens a lot of seo work !!

Thanks a lot and greetings,

Dave and Carol
Seo and Travel Website in Europe, France

وظائف

16 Sep 2010

00:47

thanks very much
where i can test my site also

dareen- Web Design

12 Oct 2010

11:14

very interesting indeed. But have to agree with William’s comment that the understanding your exact methodology would be more illuminating — particularly as your title comes on so strongly.

irfan malik

09 Nov 2010

15:13

I would add that being above the fold would count in search engine results pages (SERPS) – not necessarily specific websites.

Cheap Website Designer Leeds

08 Dec 2010

19:18

I’ve never really doubted that some people scroll, however if people were given a choice of scrolling and clicking they would prefer to click, especially on a laptop sensor pad rather than using a mouse. Would get annoying very fast. Does anyone agree?

www.drivvedwebbyra.se

21 Jan 2011

09:19

Thanks Joe,

Another great article, thanks for the link.

سوق السيارات

19 Feb 2011

08:43

Excellent Article and a great website. I liked it very much.
Thanks

onlineachat

04 Mar 2011

14:31

Great article
Thank you

Rita barbera

17 Mar 2011

01:05

Nice article, useful and totally agree

Don Scott

21 Mar 2011

19:48

Have you continued to research this? What has the ongoing evidence been?

Tom Lambert Internet Marketing

12 Apr 2011

16:01

This is a very refreshing read – I’m so used to everyone assuming things based solely on what marketingsherpa or tim ash says. Test, test, test!

Tom Doyle

16 Jul 2011

09:52

Good article, but I think you’ve just added to mystery of “the fold” rather than address the common misperceptions.

Usability and online marketing experts have been taken out of context for years when they discuss the importance of having key elements or call to actions above the fold. This created a frenzy of every website designer trying to fit all their call to actions into the top half of a page and made them ignore what was below.

As your studies show, people are happy to explore with a scrollbar, but you never emphasised that you only have 3-5 seconds to grab someones attention and give the impression of what your website is all about.

I’m assuming your studies focused on a particular website, as in your testers were asked to test a particular website rather than a number of websites. If this was the case, they wouldn’t have been thinking about leaving the website as they knew they were expected to stay and look around.

So having key elements “above The Fold” is important to draw people in and make an impression. Of course as you point out, you can make adjustments within the fold to make people explore too.

So for me, the fold isn’t a myth – but cramming everything into it is.

Don Scott

25 Jul 2011

12:15

Fiz and Joe,

I beg of you to update your research! There is so much happening in our digital world that revalidation is a must.

Don Scott

Fred

12 Sep 2011

09:08

This is a constant battle with clients, and thanks for the post – it gives me some ammunition. I’ve always thought the fold wasn’t a barrier – how could it be with the proliferation of blogs which all require scrolling, or Facebook for that matter. The fact that a client would want to restrict their content to a mere few hundred pixels in depth astounds me. Having so little content is terrible for visitors and search engines alike.

German Translation

28 Sep 2011

07:30

I agree with Fred. The client’s demand was ‘surprising’ to say the list. Nice article!

J.

Webbyrå i Göteborg

03 Oct 2011

20:28

Nice article! thanks!

Trevor Locke

11 Oct 2011

15:41

Thank you so much – this article was a ‘god-send’, I LIKED IT a lot

Dan

17 Nov 2011

03:38

This article was referenced on Wikipedia. I would say that the Fold is what catches the readers attention, but you’ve got to have good and interesting content below the fold to keep readers coming back. Thanks for the article.

nicepaul

29 Feb 2012

17:59

I’d say this is largely based on your test demographic.

When testing an online transaction with older people and web novices, we observed that a significant number of users didn’t scroll down the page. Novices were sometimes unfamiliar with the concept of scrolling at all.

Moreover, a few people who scrolled down past things they would later need, would not realise they could scroll back up the page. When looking for the next task, they would give up if it were not immediately visible on the screen.

Worth considering when designing for everyone (as we are doing on gov.uk)

Joe Leech

01 Mar 2012

09:06

@nicepaul

That is interesting. Yes, typically we test with people who have completed an online transaction at some point before. We’ve equally tested heavily with the over 70s and seen that age isn’t always an indicator of web aptitude.

I think the point comes back to those sites like Gov.uk (great job by the way) where the real issue is not cramming to much on the page.

As I’ve said a few times up there. Still put important content at the top of the page. It will get noticed more.

I think your point on this is valid, know your audience and design for them.

Craig Sullivan

08 Apr 2012

10:11

Well – I’m surprised nobody has mentioned clicktale here, or indeed that people in the UK have an average of 2.2 toolbars installed.

Yes, everyone, when you venture out of the usability lab, people have lots of minging toolbars installed on their machines. This decreases the viewport, for starters.

Now add to that mix, the vastly different configurations of browser window handling and you have a problem. What is the fold? Is it a line?

No – it’s a region of % probability. Let’s imagine that a call to action button is showing on the page and looks great. With Clicktale, you can see the exact percentage of people who do NOT see the button, as it is ‘off the bottom of the page’ for their viewport.

Being able to see the actual screen size cutoff point as applied to the precise design shown to the user, in their browser – is vital.

Clicktale has saved my a** several times because it lets me see where the design may cause problems of button visibility, content that doesn’t flow past the break or the lack of visual cues to ‘down below’ that people unconsciously look for.

A lot of thinking time can be avoided by looking at actual user experience in their browser configuration. There is one clicktale report which can show you both the reach of your design down the page (in percentage terms) but also which configurations or segments scroll more or less.

If anyone has questions on clicktale or wants to see this on one of my sites, please let me know.

Joe Leech

10 Apr 2012

13:43

@craig:
Thanks for the useful information about toolbars and positioning of the fold.

Clicktale is an important tool, we’ve used it as well as similar tools like Tealeaf.

The important rule we describe, ensuring there is no vertical rule across the page stopping exploration below it is the key.

Peepage is important – that is allow a design continuation down the page to encourage scrolling.

The best research is varied research; both qualitative like user testing and quantitive like Clicktale.

Clicktale is useful tool to help critique a design but if the design doesn’t follow the suggestions we make above in the first place no amount of Clicktale can help.

iamkeir

20 Nov 2013

10:12

This is really useful, Joe. I have a few queries though, more applicable to newer OS/browsers:

1) I am confused by some references to designing around the fold in this article: “First Choice have now fixed the horizontal line issues and have content just showing above the fold” and “small amount of content just visible, poking up above the fold to encourage scrolling”. There are thousands of mobiles, tablets, mini-tablets, laptops, screens, etc. for which a reliable ‘fold’ cannot exist.

2) The latest touch devices and, in particular, iOS/OSX, have begun hiding scrollbars until scrolling is initiated – so have we lost that indicator of more content to encourage exploration? In recent test on a current project here at cx, 3 users of 6 users said they did not think they could scroll an interface. I know this is a tiny group and is subject to the interface being tested – but it suggests the issue still remains.

Do you/cx have any more wisdom on this topic? Currently frazzling my brain!